Halloo, Arn and I are back from a brief vacation in Japan¹ with my family. This time we took a Shinkansen² to the Kansai area so we were able to cover more ground compared to past visits.³
Spring had just sprung when we arrived over a week ago and we were lucky to have witnessed the once-a-year blooming of the beautiful Sakura during our stay. You can view some photos at the following albums: Kyoto / Kobe / Ueno Park / Ohanami in Ibaraki / Tokyo

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Please pardon the sporadic blog updates, but remember you can always IM me on Twitter and iLike. 🙂

1. Obviously we love the place, that’s why we keep going back. Add to that the fact that my Papa always invites us over and generously sponsors our trip. 🙂[ back]
2. aka Bullet Train. On a regular train, the ride from Tokyo to Kyoto will take 8 hours. Via shinkansen, it only took us 2 hours, tops![ back]
3. Kyoto is actually special to me because we stayed for a month in Kyoto when I was 7 (photo here). [ back]

Since my last entry…
* …PLDT-DSL has gone from bad to worse. Is it just ours or do the lines really fluctuate for one to two hours during off-peak hours? It’s been like this for two weeks now. We’ve reported it 3x but the rep only keeps saying that “they will look into it”. (Boo!)
* …two of my favorite TV shows (1, 2) have gone on hiatus. What do you do when your favorite shows go on hiatus? Why, go bananas of course.
By the way, I got this from Nest:

Aww! Hopefully there’ll be a season 4. The shot is from the episode “Mars Bars”
Regarding Heroes, what an awesome mid-season ender that was, huh?¹ I don’t want to put spoilers here so if you’d like to discuss, leave me a note.
* …I’ve been working on the next issue of WE double time.².
* …I’ve discovered iLike. Take a look at the nifty widget below and you will see what my iTunes is playing right now. The smart sidebar it comes with will also recommend tunes that sound similar to what you’re playing so it’s a great way to discover new music plus it’ll show you what your friends are listening to and vice versa so in a way, it’s like Friendster for music lovers. Also, if you’ve been wondering all this time where my subject headers are coming from, you’ll find the answers for sure in my Recently Played list. 😉

* …I retired my phlog³ and will be posting new photos on my Multiply account from now on.
* …we attended the wedding of Arn’s Korea travel buddy and Cast comic partner (and my VM co-fan) Jamie Bautista. Pictures here.
* …Carlo introduced me to Twitter, a quick way of telling the world what I’m doing at the moment⁴. I can enter one-line updates via IM and they will show up on my profile. It’s very much like a blog except that it’s more spontaneous. So in case I don’t get to update again within the next few weeks, just check my wall and see if I’m *really* hard at work or just puttering around online.

1. Oh no, Peter’s trademark “bang” (singular of bangs) got cut off! I don’t think it’s the end of him though.[ back]
2. Also because I’ve been glued to the TV and my deadline is looming and on top of that Arn and I are FINALLY going away on vacation again next weekend[ back]
3. it’s still accessible though[ back]
4. like the world cares, right?[ back]

Huh? Is it time for my once-a-month entry already? I hardly even noticed February creep in because I was [see subject heading]¹ with:
1. A website for a very talented Cake Artist. Can’t show you the new site yet but I will soon because I want you to see her beautiful handiwork. UPDATE: It’s almost live, friends. You can take a peek if you like 🙂
2. Another album packaging project. It’s here².
3. Illustrating and designing for merchandise not just for *cough plug cough* Poptastic³ but also for a well-loved blogger/writer who’s coming up with her line of products soon. Sorry but that’s all I can say about that for now. 😉
4. And now that it’s Feb, I have to start working on the layouts for a new publication by the same team that’s brought you Wedding Essentials called “WE Destinations”. Watch out for it in April! 😀
That said, it’s likely that my next “well-planned”⁴ blog entry will be in April.
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Please also watch out for the latest issue of Cast, due out this week –written by Jamie Bautista, drawn by my hubby. I’ve read the issue and it totally rocks! I like the series because it has the feel of Veronica Mars (and I mean that in a good way, you know I’m a fan) only without the murder. Here’s the ad starring some, well, very familiar faces:

Click to launch the ad in a separate window
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And because Arn and I are terribly hooked and cannot (and will not) be stopped from talking about it, here’s a link to the unofficial Heroes blog by director/producer Greg Beeman. Warning: there are a few spoilers in there but it’s worth visiting because of the interviews, behind-the-scenes photos and very entertaining director’s commentary.

Photo swiped from aforementioned blog.
No matter how busy we are, we make it a point to set aside an hour every Tuesday, Pacific standard time, to watch the latest episode⁵. Arn’s even gone as far to say that the superhero concept will never be seen the same way again. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do yourselves a favor and watch the first episode on Wednesday at 9pm, Star World. You will LOVE it. 🙂

1. And I was in 3rd year college when that song was all the rage with the new wave crowd. Do the math if you like.[ back]
2. Oh please don’t say we’ve sold out, we already know that. We just never say no to SonyBMG because they’re wonderful people and are like family to us.[ back]
3. check out our new Heroes-inspired designs![ back]
4. As opposed to this one which is 90% written from stream of consciousness[ back]
5. Hot off good ol’ Isohunt[ back]